[Posted by Chuck Almdale]

How hummingbirds fly through spaces too narrow for their wings

High-speed cameras show the tiny birds keep flapping their wings as they fly sideways.
by Erin Garcia de Jesús, 9 Nov 2023

Link to article

Lead paragraph:
Hummingbirds are natural acrobats, twisting their wings in ways that let them fly backward and upside down, unlike any other bird. New high-speed video now shows how, using a bit of aerial gymnastics, hummingbirds can also slip through gaps narrower than their wingspan.    

---

Crabs left the sea not once, but several times, in their evolution

Most terrestrial plants and animals departed the ocean for land only once in their distant past.
By Amanda Heidt, 20 Nov 2023

Link to article

Lead paragraph:
Most terrestrial plants and animals left the ocean a single time in their evolutionary history to live ashore. But crabs have seemingly scuttled out of the sea more than a dozen times, with at least two groups later reverting back to a marine lifestyle, a study finds. The research, published November 6 in Systematic Biology, sheds new light on the evolutionary history of the group Brachyura, which includes roughly 7,600 species of “true crabs,” and includes the most comprehensive evolutionary tree yet created for the group. And the study offers clues about how other early invertebrates may have evolved a terrestrial lifestyle, researchers say.